On the night of 28 August 2026, Russian forces struck a warehouse complex in Sviatopetrovsk, Kyiv Oblast, where publications of one of Ukraine's largest book publishing houses — “A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga” — were stored and shipped. Both the warehouse itself and a significant portion of the book stock were destroyed. The attack was reported by the publisher's director, Ivan Malkovich, on his Facebook page, where he emphasized that this was not the first instance of the deliberate destruction of their products.

“We had stayed silent, but this night the warehouse was destroyed”

In his statement, Malkovich recalled that Russian military forces had previously set fire to the publisher's books on several occasions in various locations, as well as smashed the windows and doors of the main warehouse. “But this night the warehouse was destroyed — the very one from which we directly shipped our publications,” he stressed. According to the director, the publisher will face serious problems with order fulfillment in the near future, as the logistics infrastructure has been destroyed.

Scale of the losses: “apocalyptic” scenes

Malkovich described the aftermath of the attack as “apocalyptic” and declined to publish photographs so as not to shock readers. “Many of our beautiful books worth a large sum burned to the ground,” he stated. The exact volume of the destroyed stock and the amount of material damage were not disclosed at the time of publication. The fire completely engulfed the premises: in photos taken by witnesses, tongues of flame can be seen bursting from charred pages, and black debris where books ready for shipment had lain just recently.

Other publishers were also hit

The warehouse in Sviatopetrovsk served not only “A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga.” It also stored products from the Vivat publishing house, as well as goods for the Readeat and Book.ua bookstores. Thus, a single attack affected the interests of several major players in the Ukrainian book market. Readeat has already announced a suspension of order fulfillment: the company needs time to assess the scale of the damage and develop a plan to resume logistics. Book.ua had not issued any comments at the time of publication.

Contradictory data

In a number of initial reports and in the original summary, the phrase “strike on a train with books” appears, which may be an error or a typo. All four verified sources (RBC-Ukraine, NV, Ukranews, ua.news) unanimously indicate that the target of the attack was precisely a warehouse — a stationary storage facility in Sviatopetrovsk, Kyiv Oblast. Neither Malkovich's statement nor the publisher's partners' reports mention a railway train or any vehicle. Thus, the correct version is: a warehouse complex was destroyed, not a “train” in the transport sense.

Publishers continue operations

Despite the loss of a key logistics hub, Vivat stated that it is not halting its activities: offline bookstores remain open, and e-books and audiobooks continue to be available to readers. “A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga” is also not ceasing its publishing work, although delivery times for physical orders may be revised. The incident once again underscores the vulnerability of civilian infrastructure, including cultural infrastructure, to military actions and raises the question of how deliberately the attacks target objects unrelated to military production.